Abandonment is a process. There’s nothing static about an abandoned building. Slowly the brickwork crumbles. Windows get broken. Doors get boarded up. Paint cracks and fades. Vandals attack. There comes a critical point – the point of no return – when a decaying building slips inexorably from being empty but useable, to being fit only for demolition. Some buildings are abandoned and then re-used – churches are a prime example – but for most buildings abandonment ultimately leads to demolition.

Abandoned buildings last longest in poorer areas, where land is of little value. Thus in the once great industrial towns and cities of northern England there are many abandoned buildings: mills in Manchester, street upon street of terraced houses in Burnley. By contrast there are few abandoned buildings in the prosperous and overcrowded south-east of England. When a building becomes redundant in London it is usually pulled down quickly so the land can be re-used.

Ye Olde Nelson pub, Salford, 2004

Stewart Brown has since 2000 been documenting abandoned buildings, from massive mills to country cottages, wherever his travels in Britain take him, generally fitting photography around business trips. This website will be developed to show a small number of those images. Those currently displayed were taken using an Olympus E20-P digital camera